| Shiken said: |
This was such an interesting reply. I wouldn't say I don't care for the overarching plot; I said on the OP that I just couldn't find an attachment to BoTW's because of the way it's told, partially because of it's open-ended structure (which made for some mundane and repetitive dialogue of things you already know, and the discovery of other key points less impactful, plus character development feeling kind of off such as the frog sequence of Zelda I alluded to).
As for how games play with each other, plenty of people have alluded to Zelda 1 a lot in this thread, which regrettably I haven't played and based on what people have said it kinda defies the premise of my thread entirely. All I can point out is that I agree about Zelda games playing differently in each entry, every game with its own personality and its own sense of adventure, but they're mostly encouraged toward dungeon exploring (from my perspective).
Zelda 2, even if it plays as a platformer, featured heavy exploration of dungeons. You already mentioned those that can be considered traditional formula; I felt like the dungeon aspect of Wind Waker is integrated too much in the core to seem secondary to the ocean exploration, even if that's what the player will be doing most of the time (unsure if that makes sense). It's a similar case with Phantom Hourglass, who features plenty of exploration but it always takes us back to the central and core dungeon to clear more rooms. You bring an interesting point with Majora's Mask (especially considering this is my favourite Zelda game); however, even if there were only four major dungeons, it still had things like the Pirate fortress or Ikana's Castle, or maze-like scenarios such as the Deku palace, and these places weren't optional.
Haven't really played Skyward Sword or Spirit Tracks, so I can't say with these.
All in all I can't really disagree with the notion that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so I guess I should have worded the OP a bit better?
